After $1.2bn in ticket sales and truckloads of DVDs – as well as millions of blue Elsa dresses – it’s no surprise that Disney still aren’t willing to let it go when it comes to Frozen. The company has announced that an adaptation of the film will launch on Broadway in the spring of 2018, following a preparatory production somewhere outside New York next year.

The film’s songwriters, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, will handle the adaptation, along with its screenwriter Jennifer Lee. Lopez already has considerable Broadway pedigree, having written the musicals The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q. The project was tentatively announced in 2014, with Disney CEO Robert Iger saying: “We’re not demanding speed, we’re demanding excellence.”

Tony-winning choreographer Pete Darling, who has worked on Billy Elliot and Matilda, and Golden Globe-winning director Alex Timbers are among the creative team being assembled for the show.

Let it go to peer review: discussion of Frozen is academic at Symfrozium

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With its exuberant songwriting and a progressive attitude towards female characters, the story of a princess battling with her mysterious power to freeze anything she touches has proven a hugely profitable sensation for Disney. The company has already overseen an ice-dancing show and partnered with the Norwegian tourist board on Frozen holidays.

A sequel to the film was announced in March 2015. Disney has also just announced a new Frozen film for TV in 2017, following a short, Frozen Fever, that aired before screenings of Cinderella last year.

The Frozen stage show will be Disney’s latest foray on to Broadway, after founding its theatrical division with Beauty and the Beast in 1994. Since then it has staged successful versions of films including The Lion King (the biggest-grossing musical of all time), The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, a production of which arrives in the West End in June 2016.